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Heard on broadcast last night: Mississippi State's stadium was the product of a $63 million renovation. It's not like Mississippi has more resources to tap into than the Pac-12 region has. There are more billionaires per capita in San Francisco than anywhere in the world. But it's clear there are regions of the country people will spend a much larger portion of the money they have on sports. No point getting into why.

The reality is people just don't care about college sports in the Pac-12 region as they do in the ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Big Ten regions.  I'm not real big on home field advantage in post-season, where I think the best teams always win.  But compare UCLA and Stanford's home fields to Mississippi State and LSU's.  It is kind of shocking to see the comparisons.  SEC stadiums look like professional baseball.  The Pac-12 looks like amateur hour by comparison. Although the Pac-12 had the two top college players selected in the draft, it is clearly obvious after watching the NCAA Baseball tournament that The SEC and ACC are running circles around it, the Big 12 is better, and maybe the Big Ten is at least on par.


Stanford was one of the worst performing teams in the Super Regionals. Only East Carolina was weaker. But then again, UCLA lost at home to a 3 seed as the #1 overall seed.   I remember in the 1980s it not being uncommon for 4 Pac-12 teams to be in the CWS. Football has fallen. MBB has fallen. Baseball has fallen.  Softball at least continues to hold its own, but other than that, the Pac-12 is falling further behind in all the sports TV cares about. It was one thing when other conferences could get better players - even from the West Coast - just to play in front of more eyeballs, but now it seems evident the top talent will prefer to play East of the Rockies against the best players.  The Pac-12 is effectively on the path to being a mid-major in all revenue generating sports.

Anyway, back to the on-field. It looks to me like Florida State is the best team right now. I'll be rooting for Mike Martin to close out his 40th and final season with a CWS win.

the mdawgs can correct me but alumni raised $25M of the $68M nut and the renovation is supposed to generate $2 to $3M revenue per year.  add in the 10 year PSLs and voila it is supposed to be paid for in roughly a decade.  not Arrilaga, but not too bad.

[slide]

Heard on broadcast last night: Mississippi State's stadium was the product of a $63 million renovation. It's not like Mississippi has more resources to tap into than the Pac-12 region has. There are more billionaires per capita in San Francisco than anywhere in the world. But it's clear there are regions of the country people will spend a much larger portion of the money they have on sports. No point getting into why.

The reality is people just don't care about college sports in the Pac-12 region as they do in the ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Big Ten regions.  I'm not real big on home field advantage in post-season, where I think the best teams always win.  But compare UCLA and Stanford's home fields to Mississippi State and LSU's.  It is kind of shocking to see the comparisons.  SEC stadiums look like professional baseball.  The Pac-12 looks like amateur hour by comparison. Although the Pac-12 had the two top college players selected in the draft, it is clearly obvious after watching the NCAA Baseball tournament that The SEC and ACC are running circles around it, the Big 12 is better, and maybe the Big Ten is at least on par.


Stanford was one of the worst performing teams in the Super Regionals. Only East Carolina was weaker. But then again, UCLA lost at home to a 3 seed as the #1 overall seed.   I remember in the 1980s it not being uncommon for 4 Pac-12 teams to be in the CWS. Football has fallen. MBB has fallen. Baseball has fallen.  Softball at least continues to hold its own, but other than that, the Pac-12 is falling further behind in all the sports TV cares about. It was one thing when other conferences could get better players - even from the West Coast - just to play in front of more eyeballs, but now it seems evident the top talent will prefer to play East of the Rockies against the best players.  The Pac-12 is effectively on the path to being a mid-major in all revenue generating sports.

Anyway, back to the on-field. It looks to me like Florida State is the best team right now. I'll be rooting for Mike Martin to close out his 40th and final season with a CWS win.

the mdawgs can correct me but alumni raised $25M of the $68M nut and the renovation is supposed to generate $2 to $3M revenue per year.  add in the 10 year PSLs and voila it is supposed to be paid for in roughly a decade.  not Arrilaga, but not too bad.